SCAMS are everywhere these days and small business owners are continuously being targeted. Listen to this episode if you don’t want to fall victim to an unscrupulous company doing shady business tactics! 

Transcript
Kimberly Beer:

The Business Animal podcast is proudly

Kimberly Beer:

sponsored by WP Engine your resource for managed WordPress

Kimberly Beer:

hosting, and Keap the premier CRM software for small business

Kimberly Beer:

head over to the business animal.com for the best deals on

Kimberly Beer:

these two amazing products

Jaz:

Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. Saddle up for a

Jaz:

gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you'll learn how

Jaz:

to tame your wild business beast with tips, techniques, and tools

Jaz:

that will take overwhelm to obedience school and have you

Jaz:

wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts Kim Beer and Cara

Jaz:

Taylor Swift

Kimberly Beer:

Hey there business animals It's Kim with

Kimberly Beer:

Be More Business

Cara Taylor Swift:

and Cara with Fast Horse Photography. I have

Cara Taylor Swift:

to say Kim, I'm already annoyed about our topic today. What is

Cara Taylor Swift:

it about this topic that just makes everyone annoyed? Why No,

Cara Taylor Swift:

it's a really annoying topic. It's very frustrating.

Kimberly Beer:

Actually, I find it very intriguing and

Kimberly Beer:

interesting. I find it a completely and totally

Kimberly Beer:

fascinating subject and I have got to say I have really enjoyed

Kimberly Beer:

our wrap for this episode because we have a favorite list

Kimberly Beer:

coming up that I think that our listeners are just gonna

Kimberly Beer:

absolutely love. So what are we talking about today Cara that

Kimberly Beer:

you're annoyed with and I'm fascinated by

Cara Taylor Swift:

Well, I'm I'm actually a little disturbed that

Cara Taylor Swift:

you're fascinated by this. But can we were talking about scams,

Cara Taylor Swift:

scams s c a m s that target small business owners like the

Cara Taylor Swift:

bane of my existence. Raise your hand if you've ever been like a

Cara Taylor Swift:

victim of scam of a scam. I'm raising my hands I've been

Cara Taylor Swift:

scammed before. Have you ever been scammed before? Are you too

Cara Taylor Swift:

too smart for that? No,

Kimberly Beer:

I've been scammed. I've been scammed. And

Kimberly Beer:

I think everybody out there in the world has been scammed. I've

Kimberly Beer:

even had my identity stolen. So how's that for that? That was a

Kimberly Beer:

fun adventure in understanding how identity theft works, which

Kimberly Beer:

we're not going to get into here because the laundry list of

Kimberly Beer:

scams that we have is incredible when I opened the document and I

Kimberly Beer:

saw one of Kara's famous lists of the most common scams. Oh, my

Kimberly Beer:

word and for 2022. Yeah, for 2022. Oh my gosh. So these are

Kimberly Beer:

only current scams. These are past scams, or current scams. So

Kimberly Beer:

here's the thing, here's what happens in my world, I get

Kimberly Beer:

probably, I would say at least four to five times a week, not

Kimberly Beer:

me getting them but I have clients that will email me

Kimberly Beer:

saying I just got this email for this with this bill for like

Kimberly Beer:

$290 or $180. And what do I do with it? What is this for and

Kimberly Beer:

I'm like that is a scam, do not pay it. People have a hard time

Kimberly Beer:

recognizing these scams out there. And it is one of my pet

Kimberly Beer:

peeves. I hate it when people fall victim to them. Because

Kimberly Beer:

they are costly. Some of them are costly in money. Others of

Kimberly Beer:

them are costly in business exposure. And they're all costly

Kimberly Beer:

in our time. So they really need to be stopped. So our mission in

Kimberly Beer:

this episode today is to give you some tools to understand

Kimberly Beer:

what scams are out there, what you can do to avoid them. And

Kimberly Beer:

then some things that you can do if you have been a victim of a

Kimberly Beer:

scam. So our big three for today and I love my number one so if

Kimberly Beer:

it feels fishy, it's probably fishy. So the spelling is

Kimberly Beer:

different on the fishy just because we're in audio you don't

Kimberly Beer:

see it, but I love my if it feels fishy, it probably is

Kimberly Beer:

fishy.

Cara Taylor Swift:

I think they get it though. I think they get

Cara Taylor Swift:

it. All right. And number Yeah, I think they I think they get

Cara Taylor Swift:

it.

Kimberly Beer:

Number two is to have tips to avoid scams. And

Kimberly Beer:

number three is what to do if you are scammed. So we're gonna

Kimberly Beer:

start out with if it feels fishy, it's probably fishy. I

Kimberly Beer:

had to get that in there one more time. And here's gonna give

Kimberly Beer:

you a laundry list of the most common scams that are out there

Kimberly Beer:

and see if you can recognize where these have shown up in

Kimberly Beer:

your inbox and your social media in your mailbox.

Cara Taylor Swift:

Yeah. So when I sat down to do the research

Cara Taylor Swift:

for this episode, I was thinking I would kind of have an idea of

Cara Taylor Swift:

what I was going to be putting here because first of all, I've

Cara Taylor Swift:

been a victim of a scam before. Secondly, I feel like every day

Cara Taylor Swift:

someone sending me some kind of their identity has been stolen

Cara Taylor Swift:

and then they're there. Someone has hacked into their account.

Cara Taylor Swift:

They're sending me something. So that's like every day. The sad

Cara Taylor Swift:

part is is it's like this is so incredibly common that it's

Cara Taylor Swift:

almost like the norm for us on a daily basis to manage scams to

Cara Taylor Swift:

defend ourselves from scams. So what I started putting this list

Cara Taylor Swift:

together. I got a little overwhelmed. So what I'm going

Cara Taylor Swift:

to do is I'm going to overwhelm you guys by just reading down

Cara Taylor Swift:

the list and then Kim and I are going to talk about our favorite

Cara Taylor Swift:

scams or we're going to call them our favorite scams are we

Cara Taylor Swift:

going to say calm or scam hotlist? I don't know. Our

Cara Taylor Swift:

favorite, favorite scam. So

Kimberly Beer:

our favorite scams to avoid There

Cara Taylor Swift:

you go. So according to the Federal Trade

Cara Taylor Swift:

Commission, and some of these were also pulled from the Better

Cara Taylor Swift:

Business Bureau. Here is the list of the most common scams

Cara Taylor Swift:

out there for 2022 Just 2022. Guys, I mean, some of these, you

Cara Taylor Swift:

know, have spans multiple years but this is 2022 favorites are

Cara Taylor Swift:

most common scams. There's the fake check scam, there's fake

Cara Taylor Swift:

invoices, there's the registration imposters brand

Cara Taylor Swift:

building scams, threatening legal action scams, reputation

Cara Taylor Swift:

fixing scams, directory listing scams, utility scams, credit

Cara Taylor Swift:

card processing deals, scams, business license scams, phishing

Cara Taylor Swift:

email scams, followed by spear phishing email scams, charity

Cara Taylor Swift:

scams, stolen identity scams, vanity award scams and blog

Cara Taylor Swift:

scams. That's the first list that we pulled together. Y'all

Cara Taylor Swift:

were dealing with this every day all day, it's so much more time

Cara Taylor Swift:

consuming than I even thought it would be everywhere we open an

Cara Taylor Swift:

inbox, we open our email, we open our mailbox we're at, we

Cara Taylor Swift:

answer a phone call, we're at risk of being scammed. I am I'm

Cara Taylor Swift:

thinking about just like hiding right now.

Kimberly Beer:

Yeah, I mean, cuz it we are inundated with it

Kimberly Beer:

every single day. And yes, a certain amount of it is even

Kimberly Beer:

buffered from us. Because things that are commonly pointed out as

Kimberly Beer:

scams go directly to our spam box in our email. But the end,

Kimberly Beer:

boy, you don't want to look in there. Oh, good, Lord, there's a

Kimberly Beer:

lot of scams in your spam box. So the ones that get through the

Kimberly Beer:

spam box and get to you. But these things are dangerous to

Kimberly Beer:

people, I've had clients fall victim to them and pay out a lot

Kimberly Beer:

of money. I have fallen victim to them on occasion. And it has

Kimberly Beer:

it's costly. And it's problematic. There's one type of

Kimberly Beer:

scam though, that's my one on my top 10 favorite list that you

Kimberly Beer:

didn't mention in this list. And that's the legal scam, the one

Kimberly Beer:

that's actually legal for them to scam your money, these domain

Kimberly Beer:

registry people that I was telling you about. So here's

Kimberly Beer:

here's the scam that I favorite one, I hate the worst. I guess

Kimberly Beer:

that's what what I want to do. This is a letter you'll get in

Kimberly Beer:

the mail. And it comes from this organization called domain

Kimberly Beer:

registry. And I'm going to tell you, this is a legitimate

Kimberly Beer:

company. This is a legitimate bill. And it looks super

Kimberly Beer:

legitimate and threatening. But it's there's nothing that

Kimberly Beer:

legally is wrong with it. It is this letter that says that your

Kimberly Beer:

domain is up for renewal, which is probably true, because domain

Kimberly Beer:

records are a lot of times public. Sometimes you if you pay

Kimberly Beer:

extra to the domain registrar, you can keep them private and

Kimberly Beer:

properly avoid this letter. But a lot of us don't want to pay

Kimberly Beer:

that extra fee every single month, especially for domain

Kimberly Beer:

hoarders and have like a lot of them. So it comes to you. And

Kimberly Beer:

it'll say you must renew your domain name to maintain

Kimberly Beer:

exclusive rights to it on the web. And that is very much true.

Kimberly Beer:

But then it goes on to say And now is the time to transfer and

Kimberly Beer:

renew your name from your current registrar to the domain

Kimberly Beer:

registry. So it assumes that you want to move your domain from

Kimberly Beer:

wherever you registered it GoDaddy, Bluehost, wherever to

Kimberly Beer:

them. And the thing is, is that it costs owe so much more here

Kimberly Beer:

than it does on your regular registrar. And people will pay

Kimberly Beer:

this and then their domain name gets moved so they can no longer

Kimberly Beer:

find it because where they registered, it was on GoDaddy or

Kimberly Beer:

Bluehost. And now it's on this weird thing where they wrote

Kimberly Beer:

their number on this bill that came to them. So this is legal.

Kimberly Beer:

I mean, there's nothing illegal about what this company is

Kimberly Beer:

doing. But people fall for this. And they end up spending me way

Kimberly Beer:

more money than they need to on something that they already had

Kimberly Beer:

done. And that irritates me no end because there's no way to

Kimberly Beer:

stop this. Like, I don't care who you report this to. There's

Kimberly Beer:

nothing anybody can do about it. It is such a hideous thing, in

Kimberly Beer:

my opinion for this company to do even if they're doing

Kimberly Beer:

something illegal. It's still wrong. And please do not pay

Kimberly Beer:

these. Always, always, always double check and we're gonna

Kimberly Beer:

give you tips on how to do that. But that's one of mine. What's

Kimberly Beer:

What's one of yours, Cara?

Cara Taylor Swift:

Well, they get you because you don't renew

Cara Taylor Swift:

your domain listing on a regular like monthly basis. So it's not

Cara Taylor Swift:

something you're used to paying. So when that letter comes in the

Cara Taylor Swift:

mail, it's usually that time of year when it's time to renew and

Cara Taylor Swift:

you're thinking to yourself, oh crap, I need to figure out where

Cara Taylor Swift:

I need to renew that you have to actually take the extra steps to

Cara Taylor Swift:

go do that. So yeah, in terms of some of my favors I'm gonna pick

Cara Taylor Swift:

a few that I've had actually recently come my direction. The

Cara Taylor Swift:

first one that last week, the charity scam, I had a charity in

Cara Taylor Swift:

quotation marks contact me saying that I had made a

Cara Taylor Swift:

donation to them last year and they wanted to know if they

Cara Taylor Swift:

could have my support again this year. And they were ready to

Cara Taylor Swift:

take my payment right away on the phone my donation. As a

Cara Taylor Swift:

small business owner, I do make donations. And I do support

Cara Taylor Swift:

local charities and organizations, however, because

Cara Taylor Swift:

it's just me, I know exactly who I support every year. And I have

Cara Taylor Swift:

a budget for that. And I knew that this was not a company I

Cara Taylor Swift:

had donated to so that was a scam, the vanity award scam, I

Cara Taylor Swift:

think lots of people can fall for this one, they contact you

Cara Taylor Swift:

and say me too, that's on my list. If you've been nominated

Cara Taylor Swift:

for an award or you've been nominated, you know, best in

Cara Taylor Swift:

your community or something along those lines. And they want

Cara Taylor Swift:

you then to pay to receive a plaque or a registration

Cara Taylor Swift:

somewhere. Have you had that one recently to you were just saying

Cara Taylor Swift:

that's on your list?

Kimberly Beer:

Oh, yes. So those are ones like you'll get this

Kimberly Beer:

thing that says you have been selected as one of the top 50

Kimberly Beer:

women executives in the state of Missouri. And we're making this

Kimberly Beer:

book that we're gonna highlight you in this book, and we're

Kimberly Beer:

gonna put your bio in there and your contact information and

Kimberly Beer:

they have they have all of this great thing that they're going

Kimberly Beer:

to do. And this is another one that's legal. I mean, they

Kimberly Beer:

probably actually do publish that book, but I don't think

Kimberly Beer:

anyone ever sees it, and they want exorbitant amounts of money

Kimberly Beer:

to be in it. This one happens to a lot of creative people too.

Kimberly Beer:

Because if you're a poet, or a writer, or an artist of some

Kimberly Beer:

kind, you're always getting selected for these random

Kimberly Beer:

awards. It just are you having to pay for somebody else's

Kimberly Beer:

wallet, you know, they're they're wanting to publish a

Kimberly Beer:

book and you're gonna get to pay for it and they're gonna make a

Kimberly Beer:

ton of money off of you doing it tisk tisk

Cara Taylor Swift:

in The Business Animal Instagram

Cara Taylor Swift:

messages right now we have four identical messages about this

Cara Taylor Swift:

just waiting to be deleted and banned from the page from

Cara Taylor Swift:

different people with the exact same wording asking about this

Cara Taylor Swift:

thing. So this is like every day I'm sure everyone that's

Cara Taylor Swift:

listening right now has this sitting in their inbox waiting

Cara Taylor Swift:

for it's so ridiculous.

Cara Taylor Swift:

Are you looking to bring awareness to your equine based

Cara Taylor Swift:

product or service or create a unique way for your audience to

Cara Taylor Swift:

feel connected to your brand quality horse photos, tell your

Cara Taylor Swift:

story and breathe life into your marketing. They draw your

Cara Taylor Swift:

customers in and create an emotional connection powerful

Cara Taylor Swift:

images, communicate your core values and highlight the

Cara Taylor Swift:

benefits your product offers. Ultimately, proving your

Cara Taylor Swift:

business is a voice your customers can trust. It's time

Cara Taylor Swift:

to use dynamic images that define your small business and

Cara Taylor Swift:

separate you from the rest of the herd. Fast Horse Photography

Cara Taylor Swift:

is professional photo library features 1000s of searchable

Cara Taylor Swift:

images available for businesses just like yours. And guess what?

Cara Taylor Swift:

100% of those images are horse related. Now finding the right

Cara Taylor Swift:

horse images for your website. Social media and marketing needs

Cara Taylor Swift:

is easier than ever help your audience see that your brand

Cara Taylor Swift:

offers the answers they are looking for search for the

Cara Taylor Swift:

perfect images for your equine business right now spur your

Cara Taylor Swift:

customers into action with FastHorsephotography.com. That's

Cara Taylor Swift:

fasthorsephotography.com.

Cara Taylor Swift:

what else what else on this list we need to talk about.

Kimberly Beer:

So my other one that really irritates me no end

Kimberly Beer:

is whenever somebody sends me, particularly with PayPal, they

Kimberly Beer:

send me a thing that says this is coming from PayPal, your

Kimberly Beer:

account has been flagged or something like that. It's

Kimberly Beer:

something really disturbing or you know, your account is

Kimberly Beer:

overdrawn or something like that, especially PayPal, they

Kimberly Beer:

like to use pay pals logos, but I think they'll do it with banks

Kimberly Beer:

and stuff too. And there'll be a link in the email and you click

Kimberly Beer:

the link, but the link if you look at the URL, it'll be

Kimberly Beer:

something like Pay Pal number two.com Right. It's not actually

Kimberly Beer:

PayPal, what you've done is you've ended up going to another

Kimberly Beer:

page and now they're asking for your login information. And

Kimberly Beer:

because you clicked on the link in the email, you're gonna give

Kimberly Beer:

your login information to hackers and then the hackers can

Kimberly Beer:

go steal your identity or clean out your bank account or

Kimberly Beer:

whatever they need to do to get what you can and Pay Pal money

Kimberly Beer:

it's really easy to transfer it to somebody else so they get

Kimberly Beer:

into your account they can log in there and transfer the money

Kimberly Beer:

to a fake account somewhere and they're off with the money and

Kimberly Beer:

you're out the money and then you have months and months of of

Kimberly Beer:

having to clean up after that mess. I got an invoice for

Kimberly Beer:

Bitcoin. Bitcoin seems to be a popular scam these days as well.

Kimberly Beer:

I got an invoice saying that I had purchased 400 was $499 it

Kimberly Beer:

was just under 500 There must be some kind of a cut off for a

Kimberly Beer:

felony or something right around that $500 mark because it was

Kimberly Beer:

like $499 they invoiced me for $499 and I needed to pay it to

Kimberly Beer:

transfer my bitcoin that I had requested I hadn't requested any

Kimberly Beer:

bitcoin I'm not even sure any how any of this cryptocurrency

Kimberly Beer:

stuff even works I've tried to wrap my head around it I have no

Kimberly Beer:

clue and I'm like how can you send me this I reported those

Kimberly Beer:

people to directly to pay pal by the way and you know I mean

Kimberly Beer:

there's just the Norton anti virus one have you gotten that

Kimberly Beer:

one Cara? Yeah it's like the one where they say your Norton anti

Kimberly Beer:

viruses expired and listen toys to keep your computer safe. If I

Kimberly Beer:

were Norton, I would be extremely upset about the fact

Kimberly Beer:

that this company is running around scamming people for this

Kimberly Beer:

software that they didn't issue and now they're paying Norton i

Kimberly Beer:

Can you imagine being the poor person at Norton who has to get

Kimberly Beer:

the phone calls. Why paid you have our man email? No, you

Kimberly Beer:

didn't. You paid a scammer, unfortunately, and you don't

Kimberly Beer:

have Norton antivirus on your machine.

Cara Taylor Swift:

I'm sure they have a whole division dedicated

Cara Taylor Swift:

to

Kimberly Beer:

God, they do when your identity gets stolen.

Kimberly Beer:

There's a whole there's a whole corporate area that just

Cara Taylor Swift:

handles that. Alright, well, let's move on to

Cara Taylor Swift:

some tips to avoid scams because I think it's pretty clear that

Cara Taylor Swift:

you're at risk every single moment of every single day, just

Cara Taylor Swift:

letting folks you're at risk every single moment of every

Cara Taylor Swift:

single day from a scam. But I think if we move on to tips to

Cara Taylor Swift:

avoid scams that might be helpful at this point.

Kimberly Beer:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So the number

Kimberly Beer:

one tip I have to avoid a scam is never ever click on a link in

Kimberly Beer:

an email. If somebody requests a payment from you don't click on

Kimberly Beer:

the link like a company. It's different if you're getting an

Kimberly Beer:

individual invoice, but like Pay Pal, or if you're like the

Kimberly Beer:

Norton antivirus, or the domain registries or stuff like that,

Kimberly Beer:

if you click on the link that's in the email, then it can take

Kimberly Beer:

you somewhere unscrupulous. Whereas if you say okay, my

Kimberly Beer:

domain is due to be registered, like the expiration date is

Kimberly Beer:

coming up. If you go to wherever you registered your domain name,

Kimberly Beer:

and you log into that website with your login credentials,

Kimberly Beer:

then you know that you're legitimately getting your money

Kimberly Beer:

sent to the right place, since a lot of these scams are about

Kimberly Beer:

misdirection of making you think that there are legitimate entity

Kimberly Beer:

and then when you react to it, they take you to a place where

Kimberly Beer:

they're able to collect the money that the legitimate

Kimberly Beer:

company should really have. So just never ever take a sketchy

Kimberly Beer:

email link for granted. And I think that goes for messenger as

Kimberly Beer:

well. I know a friend of mine just fell victim to a Facebook

Kimberly Beer:

Messenger scam, where she thought the person was a

Kimberly Beer:

representative of Facebook and they had messaged her and when

Kimberly Beer:

all was said and done, they were able to hack her account and

Kimberly Beer:

actually take everything and make it so that Facebook banned

Kimberly Beer:

her. And it's it's a problem right? And that's a huge, huge

Kimberly Beer:

loss, Kara. I mean, imagine losing your Facebook and

Kimberly Beer:

Instagram communities, because of a hacker that's pure evil in

Kimberly Beer:

my opinion, especially a small business owner who spent years

Kimberly Beer:

and years building that following not only

Cara Taylor Swift:

losing it, but having your reputation

Cara Taylor Swift:

because who knows what they're gonna do with that account. You

Cara Taylor Swift:

know, like having a reputation as a business owner messed up

Cara Taylor Swift:

too because they're using it for whatever purposes they stole it

Cara Taylor Swift:

from you for so yeah, that's a real, a real pain. Okay, so of

Cara Taylor Swift:

course I have a whole list of tips. Do you want me to run

Cara Taylor Swift:

through those as well? Let's go ahead. Yeah, the first one I

Cara Taylor Swift:

have here is keep good records. So a lot of the scams that we

Cara Taylor Swift:

listed at the beginning, if you keep really good records, you

Cara Taylor Swift:

can help kind of figure it out before you fall victim so for

Cara Taylor Swift:

example, you'll know who your vendors are, you know who you

Cara Taylor Swift:

regularly pay for things or what you need to be paying so that

Cara Taylor Swift:

you don't unnecessarily fall victim to that domain

Cara Taylor Swift:

registration scam or the fake invoices scam because you know

Cara Taylor Swift:

what to expect and who you normally pay that's the biggest

Cara Taylor Swift:

thing you're not going to get sucked into like bogus accounts

Cara Taylor Swift:

that way another one is be careful with your payment

Cara Taylor Swift:

procedures anytime you can use and login procedures anytime you

Cara Taylor Swift:

can use a two factor authentication or have multiple

Cara Taylor Swift:

approval options like having them text you a code or

Cara Taylor Swift:

something. It's a pointless it is a pain in the butt. It's pain

Cara Taylor Swift:

in the butt to do it. We understand that I understand

Cara Taylor Swift:

that but I have found that if I just do it if I set it up, it's

Cara Taylor Swift:

there for a reason. And it does make a big difference on the

Cara Taylor Swift:

safety of your accounts, whether they be financial accounts or

Cara Taylor Swift:

social media accounts or, or whatever. Another recommendation

Cara Taylor Swift:

is to avoid untraceable payment methods. So if you are asked to

Cara Taylor Swift:

pay with Visa gift cards, do wire transfers, you know, that's

Cara Taylor Swift:

something you need to really consider. So you want to confirm

Cara Taylor Swift:

that any request for payment with untraceable methods that it

Cara Taylor Swift:

is verified by an authorized source, and you want to create a

Cara Taylor Swift:

paper trail. So if someone requests payment from it's a

Cara Taylor Swift:

business or something, I would actually recommend letting them

Cara Taylor Swift:

go contacting the actual business and verifying before

Cara Taylor Swift:

making any payments. If you have any concerns about vendors, you

Cara Taylor Swift:

know, double check the vendors that if you're unsure, they

Cara Taylor Swift:

should be willing to give you the name of the person, you're

Cara Taylor Swift:

speaking to the name of the company, the address of the

Cara Taylor Swift:

company and a phone number that you can then call and verify

Cara Taylor Swift:

they should be willing to do that for you. And then of

Cara Taylor Swift:

course, of course, this one goes without saying I feel like we

Cara Taylor Swift:

talked about all the time, be careful with what you share,

Cara Taylor Swift:

never gave your personal or financial information to someone

Cara Taylor Swift:

that you don't know, you know, easier said than done. A lot of

Cara Taylor Swift:

times, there's a lot of grooming that's happening there. And

Cara Taylor Swift:

they're asking questions slowly, you're giving information really

Cara Taylor Swift:

slowly, and they're piecing it together. But just you know, you

Cara Taylor Swift:

should have your radar up for that sort of thing. Also, you

Cara Taylor Swift:

know, like before, we talked about the two factor

Cara Taylor Swift:

authentication, protect your devices. So make sure in your

Cara Taylor Swift:

computer on your phone that you've got proper protection

Cara Taylor Swift:

software, and like him has said over and over again, don't click

Cara Taylor Swift:

those links inside of unsolicited emails. That's where

Cara Taylor Swift:

you're going to head down the wrong path down a rabbit trail.

Cara Taylor Swift:

And then my favorite way to identify scams is to literally

Cara Taylor Swift:

Google, is this a scam? And then type in what the issue is? And

Cara Taylor Swift:

I'll tell you that has helped me so many times and you ended up

Cara Taylor Swift:

yes, this is a scam. Yes, this is a scam, that's a great way to

Cara Taylor Swift:

just get you started.

Kimberly Beer:

every small business owner wants to gain

Kimberly Beer:

traction in their marketing. After three decades of working

Kimberly Beer:

with small business owners just like you I have developed what I

Kimberly Beer:

call my four by four marketing method. In just one 90 minute

Kimberly Beer:

session, you'll discover the four major focus areas of a

Kimberly Beer:

successful marketing plan. And together we'll uncover where

Kimberly Beer:

your business is getting stuck, you'll leave the session with an

Kimberly Beer:

action plan of next steps that engage your revenue engine

Kimberly Beer:

dropped by bemorebusiness.com To request your session today.

Kimberly Beer:

That's bemorebusiness.com. See you there. Absolutely. All of

Kimberly Beer:

those are great tips. One I might add to that that we talked

Kimberly Beer:

about was a lot of accounts. If you need help with something

Kimberly Beer:

inside one of your accounts, there's ways to give

Kimberly Beer:

administrator access to people and that administrators access

Kimberly Beer:

can be revoked at any particular point in time. Also, a lot of

Kimberly Beer:

them will have ways to give that access in stages. So for

Kimberly Beer:

example, if you have let's say you want to hire somebody to do

Kimberly Beer:

your social media, you can choose different roles for

Kimberly Beer:

individuals when you put them on your page and give them access

Kimberly Beer:

to things. So be careful with the access that you give to

Kimberly Beer:

people because here's another thing you may be wildly with

Kimberly Beer:

knowing what scams are out there. But your administrative

Kimberly Beer:

assistant may not be so they can fall victim for the same scams.

Kimberly Beer:

And a lot of times they don't even realize because they're not

Kimberly Beer:

being conscientious about that. In other words, it's not

Kimberly Beer:

something that they think about on a day to day basis in

Kimberly Beer:

relation to working for your business. So especially if you

Kimberly Beer:

have employees make sure that their role access does not allow

Kimberly Beer:

them to like take your accounts or anything like that. That's

Kimberly Beer:

just good safety practice. But that also helps with with these

Kimberly Beer:

scams. If the employee might fall victim to a scam. Are we

Kimberly Beer:

ready now to move on Kara to talk about what to do if you do

Kimberly Beer:

get scammed?

Cara Taylor Swift:

Yeah, I think we do. I think there's people

Cara Taylor Swift:

right now that are like, Oh, I shouldn't have clicked on that

Cara Taylor Swift:

link. What do I do? So let's talk

Kimberly Beer:

about what do you do? The first thing that I would

Kimberly Beer:

like to say about this is that you need to be relentless in

Kimberly Beer:

pursuing getting things resolved. This is something that

Kimberly Beer:

happens on such a routine basis, that a lot of organizations and

Kimberly Beer:

companies they already know they know the score, they know how

Kimberly Beer:

things are going to go and if you report the scam to them and

Kimberly Beer:

say hey, I fell for this by accident. And I What can I do

Kimberly Beer:

now a lot of them are willing to work with you to get it

Kimberly Beer:

resolved. However, some organizations such as the larger

Kimberly Beer:

social media platforms, which will remain nameless, it's hard

Kimberly Beer:

to get through to the people that can help you because

Kimberly Beer:

there's so many automations and checks and balances that are put

Kimberly Beer:

into place that it's hard to get through to a human being that

Kimberly Beer:

will go oh wait a minute, so that wasn't You that was a

Kimberly Beer:

scammer or a hacker. So pursue this relentlessly until you get

Kimberly Beer:

it as solved. If you get a rejection the first time around,

Kimberly Beer:

or if you don't get heard, do not give up, you've got to keep

Kimberly Beer:

going. Especially if it's a place where you've lost a lot of

Kimberly Beer:

money or you've lost a lot of followers or audience or access

Kimberly Beer:

to an account. You have to be relentless in pursuing it. We

Kimberly Beer:

all know people, at least Kara and I do we all know people that

Kimberly Beer:

have had these really bad things happen to them. But over time,

Kimberly Beer:

they were able to rectify the situation it but it took a

Kimberly Beer:

while. I don't think anyone has ever easily gotten through to

Kimberly Beer:

the end of one of these scams. In other words, it's always

Kimberly Beer:

going to take more than one phone call. So just from the

Kimberly Beer:

very beginning, set yourself up to say I'm in it for the long

Kimberly Beer:

haul. I'm just going to keep at this and keep at this and keep

Kimberly Beer:

appealing and appealing until I can get whatever organization

Kimberly Beer:

that was legitimate to understand that this was a scam

Kimberly Beer:

and make sure that they place the blame and the punishment on

Kimberly Beer:

the appropriate people and not the person who accidentally fell

Kimberly Beer:

for this scam. Oh, yeah.

Cara Taylor Swift:

And don't be so hard on yourself. I mean

Cara Taylor Swift:

scammers, they're really good at what they do. So have your

Cara Taylor Swift:

little cry, throw your little temper tantrum, but then give

Cara Taylor Swift:

yourself a break because they're really good and they've just

Cara Taylor Swift:

gotten better and better and better over time. And you know,

Cara Taylor Swift:

like Kim said, we all know somebody but also most of us at

Cara Taylor Swift:

some point have fallen victim so my recommendation around that is

Cara Taylor Swift:

start with the platform that you got scammed on so start there.

Cara Taylor Swift:

So if you were scammed on Facebook or Instagram report it

Cara Taylor Swift:

they have procedures for reporting that if it was a I'm

Cara Taylor Swift:

looking at our list here, if it was a utility scam, go to your

Cara Taylor Swift:

utility company and let them know that this has happened

Cara Taylor Swift:

because a lot of times they want to know or they are aware and

Cara Taylor Swift:

they are they maybe have someone researching the issue I had a

Cara Taylor Swift:

Pay Pal scam similar to yours come through one time Kim and I

Cara Taylor Swift:

reported it to PayPal, it was the same thing with the

Cara Taylor Swift:

Bitcoins. I reported it to PayPal, so you know those kinds

Cara Taylor Swift:

of things. They're aware of it, so report it to them. So start

Cara Taylor Swift:

with the platform. And then you know, there are other places you

Cara Taylor Swift:

can report to so for example, you can report a scam to the

Cara Taylor Swift:

Better Business Bureau so if it's a business related one,

Cara Taylor Swift:

we'll leave links for these but it's bbb.org backslash scam

Cara Taylor Swift:

tracker, so we'll leave these links for you guys but that's if

Cara Taylor Swift:

it's a business related one and then if it's fraud, you can also

Cara Taylor Swift:

report fraud to the Federal Trade Commission at report

Cara Taylor Swift:

fraud.ftc.gov So both of these are great places and if you are

Cara Taylor Swift:

wondering if something's a scam, you can also go to the Better

Cara Taylor Swift:

Business Bureau or the Federal Trade Commission's website and

Cara Taylor Swift:

they have just lists and lists of scams there as well. And then

Cara Taylor Swift:

the last thing is you know, as hard as it is you need to talk

Cara Taylor Swift:

about the scam you need to tell people other business owners

Cara Taylor Swift:

other folks that might be victim especially your friends and

Cara Taylor Swift:

loved ones even though it might be embarrassing it's important

Cara Taylor Swift:

to tell people so if there's a scam that's going around a lot

Cara Taylor Swift:

or you're unsure if it's a scam check with those people in your

Cara Taylor Swift:

network and say hey have you been getting these i There's a

Cara Taylor Swift:

group of photographers that I chat with regularly and we're

Cara Taylor Swift:

constantly sending each other screenshots and stuff and saying

Cara Taylor Swift:

is this a scam This looks like a scam right? You know we're

Cara Taylor Swift:

constantly checking with each other is there anything else you

Cara Taylor Swift:

want to add to this Kim

Kimberly Beer:

the base things about keeping your passwords

Kimberly Beer:

safe and not sharing them and keeping them as hard to guess or

Kimberly Beer:

things which makes them incredibly a pain in the butt to

Kimberly Beer:

remember that all said, you know, scams are like you said

Kimberly Beer:

Cara, the scammers are really damn good at what they do. And

Kimberly Beer:

that's the unfortunate part of all of this is that I wish they

Kimberly Beer:

would turn their skills and their energy level to something

Kimberly Beer:

good. I mean, can you imagine if all of the scammers decided to

Kimberly Beer:

do something legitimate with the time and effort that they put

Kimberly Beer:

into this, you know, it would be so much better our world would

Kimberly Beer:

be so much better. So if you're a scammer out there listening to

Kimberly Beer:

this, please change your ways. And for the rest of you just

Kimberly Beer:

question everything.

Cara Taylor Swift:

Anyway, if you enjoyed this episode, let us

Cara Taylor Swift:

know. We're not going to ask you to go on and tell us if you've

Cara Taylor Swift:

been scammed or not because that would be weird. But we would

Cara Taylor Swift:

love to hear from you guys if you enjoyed the episode hit us

Cara Taylor Swift:

over on Instagram or Facebook at The Business Animal find us

Cara Taylor Swift:

online at the business animal.com And you all we really

Cara Taylor Swift:

are asking again please rate and review if you enjoyed the

Cara Taylor Swift:

episode. Thank you guys so much. Don't get scammed.

Jaz:

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Business

Jaz:

Animal. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And

Jaz:

if you learned something today, leave us a review. To learn

Jaz:

more. Find us at thebusinessanimal.com We'd love

Jaz:

to hear from you. Until next time, keep your business well